The End Of All Things
by Elwen
Summary: What was going through Frodo's head as the Ring melted? (film version) Non-slash


I don't own Middle earth. It was created by JRR Tolkien. Then Peter Jackson got hold of it and played. I am now playing in Mr Jackson's garden. I hope both will forgive me.

This story is dedicated to Febobe. "Samwise the Brave".

THE END OF ALL THINGS.

It is Sam's voice. Warm, concerned, worried, begging - so different to the other. "Give me your hand!" I have nothing left to give, Sam. I am spent.

The other is beyond my reach and yet It is still here. It waits below me, calling, demanding, and almost begging. "Come to me. There is yet time."

"Take my hand." 

Sam. Dear Sam. For a moment I am held between the two voices. Sam's pleading face is closer . . . the other fading. To take a hand? That is easier than to offer one. I reach up and he grasps my wrist, but blood slicks my fingers. The broken evidence of my loss will not allow him a firm purchase. I watch as my hand slips free and have not the will to fight it. 

"No!!!" Sam's desperate cry forces my good hand to clench about sharp pumice. It is almost as though my body remembers to trust him, while even now my mind seeks out another, colder and more seductive whisper.

I hear the other again. A last, desperate plea and then silence, a roaring, echoing silence. The Precious is lost . . . and so am I. There is nothing left of me. This is my end. Why try to go on when my soul is a hollow place? I hang here, my whole weight strung agonisingly from one hand. It would be so simple to let go of the rock. So easy to unclench aching fingers.

I glance up at Sam, desperate to tell him, although I have no breath for words. There is nothing left to live for. I cannot say it but I know he understands for his jaw clenches stubbornly.

"Don't you let go." He does not beg and the words are steel, bound in flesh. It is an order. 

Why Sam? Why not let go? There will be a few more moments of pain . . . and then peace. It is so long since I have felt peace. I do not even ask for happiness anymore, just peace. What will you do Sam, if I fall? Will you follow? You have too much life in you. That is one place that even you will not follow me. No. You will go on. So why should I not let go?

But Sam will not accept my decision and he reaches even further, stretches as far as his battered body will let him to drag me back to life.

"Don't let go." 

What would you draw me back to? Can my life ever be restored without the Ring? Will there be enough of me left to take up the threads that were severed, one by one, on this journey. Until Sam was the only thread left, and that was not through my choice. You would not let me cut you away. Even when I pushed, you came back. 

My dearest Sam. Are you strong enough to retie this bond? Will others follow your lead? Will I become whole again, woven back into family and friends?

The glowing river of magma, flowing and tumbling swiftly below, beckons. There will be no going on if I make that choice. That will burn away all pain. "Where there's life, there's hope" Sam once said. What kind of life will there be - when my soul lies in tatters? Yet it will be a life. Perhaps you see a life of happiness and peace for me. Do you, Sam?

When I look back up Sam still waits, strained to his utmost to save me. He wants me to live. Why? The answer comes easily. Because he loves me. The Ring did not love me. It wanted all for Itself. Sam just wants me to live and be happy. His love is so strong that, at the Great River, he half drowned to ensure that I did not go on alone. Gandalf chose well. He knew that only love could get me to Mount Doom. But will love be enough to bring me back?

So now, here is another choice. At the river I reached down to rescue Sam. Now I have to reach up to allow myself to be rescued by Sam. On both occasions the final decision is mine. The choice for life is mine. Do I accept the loving help offered, even though the outcome is still uncertain? Then, it had been my choice to give life, but now it is my choice to accept it.

Would it not be easier to let go and allow Sam and all the others to go on without me? I would surely be a bitter reminder every day of what nearly happened?

"Reach!"

There is desperation in Sam's face; pain evident in the heat seared throat and the arm that grows a miraculous few inches longer, continuing to offer a choice. Do I accept life, with its pain and joy, or submit to the peaceful nothing of death?

I look deep into his eyes, surprised by hope. What is your hope, Sam? Hope that some miracle will happen and that life will go on, for as long as life is there to be had? Life flutters weakly about the yawning chasm that was once my soul. But it is life. I can see no future myself but I see hope for my future in Sam's eyes. Is that enough?

I gather all my strength . . . aware that this is the last of it. This could be my final choice for if I fail I will be committed to death and all choices will end. I choose life.

Inhaling a searing lung full of tainted air I sway, trying to build even just a little momentum to swing my bloodied hand higher this time . . . and I reach. This time Sam's grip is sure and firm and I grasp his wrist in return, despite the pain. He takes my hand, ignoring the injury for the moment, in favour of more pressing business, and drags me upward slowly . . . so very slowly. Soon my chest rests on trembling rock, then my thighs and finally I am able to help him in getting my legs onto firm land. Or at least reasonably firm land.

Behind me lava roils and spits peevishly, rising. Before us the stone causeway crumbles and soon Sam is half carrying, half pushing me before him, flinging me desperately across impossible chasms. We clamber up onto a rocky outcrop, an island in the midst of a boiling sea of lava, unable to go further.

"It's gone. It's done." In that I can feel some relief. The ring is destroyed and my part in Sauron's downfall is completed. Although it was very nearly not so. Strong arms guide me down to rest upon the sharp and shattered rocks. I can hardly feel them. 

"Yes, Mr. Frodo...It's over now."

Closing my eyes I take temporary sanctuary in a cooler landscape and I cannot help but smile as memories re-appear, no longer obscured by the fiery wheel. I try to share my bounty with my saviour. "I can see the Shire. The Brandywine River...Bag End...Gandalf's fireworks...The lights in the party tree."

Sam takes up the images. "Rosie Cotton dancing. She had ribbons in her hair." His voice is punctuated by a sob and I open my eyes. "If ever I was to marry someone it would have been her. It would have been her." He drops his head into grimy hands, headless of further dirt that will mingle with the tears rolling down his face.

Oh Sam. What dreadful choices we expected you to make. I push myself up, wrapping arms loosely about his shoulders. I have not even the strength to hug him properly as he deserves. He and I made the decision to go on. It may have been the right choice but now we are trapped. I see no hope of escape from death and now I realise that Sam has none either. We will fade from the heat, or lack of water, or the lava will rise and consume us. And Sam will not have his Rosie.

So now, neither of us has hope for continued life. But we will not die alone and perhaps that is enough. We have each other and we have our sharing of sweet memories and hopes dashed. Now it is my turn to comfort his loss and I am grateful that my choice has given me this much at least.

"I'm glad to be with you Samwise Gamgee, here at the end of all things." I have not the breath for more as I hold him. And there is nothing more to say. No greater friend could I hope to meet. He would lay down his very life, perhaps more, for me. To die, having earned such a friend must surely put me in good standing with whatever is to come next. Perhaps my own failings will be hidden behind the glory of being the friend of Samwise the Brave.

I lay my head on his shoulder and he grasps my arm with both hands, the only response he has the strength to make. We are both so very tired. Just a short rest before the end. We are yet alive and where there is life there is hope. I can hear Sam's voice saying that as he tucks soil about an ailing sapling. Now I must be the one who hopes. I must hope for both of us. My dear, dear Sam. And I am so tired. 

Perhaps I can hold on to this hope. We have both lost much and yet in this we can share. I can hope that we will meet our end together, Samwise the Brave. Not alone. Neither of us alone.

Soaring. Cool air ruffling my hair. Weightless. Around me blooms a sunset, clear and red and I am at the heart of this beautiful dream. Is this death or life? Whatever ending I come to I know that Sam will be with me. I feel peace at last and close my eyes, hoping for the next awakening. The story goes on after all.

Sunlight, peace, comfort and birdsong. Have we reached the distant shore? I open my eyes, searching for his face, and find another. Gandalf? Are we truly at the end of our choices? I try to rise, watching a slow smile break on that lined face, and feel the pressure of bandages on my hand. Alive? I am alive, and so is Gandalf and soon I am surrounded by all those others, who I had lost hope of ever seeing again on this shore. All save one.

I look up and suddenly, there he is. Sam stands apart from the others. Like me, he wears a nightshirt and his hair is damp from recent washing. There are scars on his face and in those hazel eyes, that hold mine for a long moment. All else in the room is lost to me. For those eyes know the choices both he and I have made. We travelled our dark places together, Sam and I, and we are here. That choice will hold us together long after the Ring is forgotten. 

If there is any way that I can help it happen, Sam will have his Rosie. As for me? I know he will do whatever is in his power to continue being the friend at my side. And if my hope runs low again he will give me his, just as he has done all through our journey. 

Choices. Life is choices and of all the choices that I made in my life, I am glad I chose to be the friend of Sam Gamgee.

END


End file.
